Exciting things are coming up:

2) I’d really like to go visit my best friend and her baby Paityn, the weekend of March 14th. But I am still praying for the finances to do that. It’s about 170 dollars for a plane ticket.

3) The weekend of March 28th, it looks like the internship is going to take a short retreat to Washington D.C. We are going to visit the Holocaust Museum as well as Justice House of Prayer.Jess’s father lives there so we will be visiting him as well!

4) The last weekend in April, Jess and I as well as our lovely host mother, Becky, will be taking a girls retreat to the beach for a weekend! We are really excited about some warm weather, hopefully. 🙂

You might think slavery is over right? Because it is illegal to own slaves. But there is a modern day slavery that is taking place in America and across the nations.

It is the sex-slavery industry. Also known as human trafficking.

I went to IHOP-KC in December for the OneThing conference. During one of the sessions a man named Benji Nolot got up and spoke. He is the founder of Exodus Cry. He called us to begin to pray for the ending of human trafficking.

I knew that this was the Lord. This is on the heart of the Lord. So I wrote it in my journal. Pray for the ending of human trafficking.

On Tuesdays, during our corporate intercession meeting we pray for injustices. After OneThing, I had a dream about women who were being held captive in rooms and used for sex. I woke up praying for the women to be set free. And I started interceding for this issue on Tuesdays, as well as in my own prayer time.

I want you to be aware of what is going on. So many women, boys and children are being forced into things that are unimaginable. Because of people’s desire for perversion. It makes me sick.

I am praying for the ending of this modern day slavery. Will you join me? Please check out Exodus Cry.

If you CLICK HERE and click on the Southeast Asia missions trip report, you can read stories of women being set free and stories of what is happening over in Asia. It is so sad.

The Lord was speaking to me in the prayer room about how I am supposed to see other people. I’ve shared on here a lot that I struggle with loving people the way that I am supposed to.

Today, my friend Sam was singing a song by Tim Reimherr called More Than Ashes. It says “I’m the rose, I’m the lily, I am Yours, I’m Your beauty.” And it is just amazing when you have this revelation of how much you mean to the Lord.

But today the Lord was telling me, “Thats what I think about the others around you too.” Which I know, but I don’t usually think about. So I was beginning to journal about the revelation that the Lord has of others. Even the ones I get frustrated with, or think are so immature or whatever the case is.

The Lord wants us to have revelation of our identity, but He wants us to understand this is the identity of everyone. This thing called Christianity is so much more corportate then we think. We, the Church, are the Bride. All of us.

Something that Billy Humphrey always says is, “God really likes you, no I mean really likes You.” And so when that person is doing something you don’t like, or think they shouldn’t be doing, remember how much God really likes them. He really loves them. He really thinks they are awesome. He really delights in them.

This is why He said love our neighbors as ourselves. He wants us to know our identity and be confident in it, but He wants us to know others identity too. Because when we begin to see how God sees, just as we have to do with ourselves. We will begin to love them, just as we begin to love ourselves.

This really helped me with taking every thought captive. When someone is annoying me and I’m just thinking about what they said and blah blah blah, I can remember the things the Lord speaks over them! They are beautiful to Him, He says they are lovely even in their weakness!

I know I sure don’t see people the way the Lord does. Help me God! Give me Your eyes and Your perspective! Teach me to love others as You love them!

We left our house, and at almost every major intersection or stop sign we flipped a coin. Heads was right, tails was left.

We saw LOTS Of cows. I didn’t know North Carolina had that many cows.

One turn led us to the landfill. This sign says Alamance County Solid-Waste management.

Then we ended up about 30 minutes away in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In a rich neighbor hood. With lots of HUGE houses.

Then we ended up on the campus of University of North Carolina.

And we took pictures of random people walking around the campus.

Me on our fun adventure.

After we drove around Chapel Hill following the coin, I decided to see if we were close to this big mall, South Point. So I looked it up on my GPS and we were only 5.6 miles away! We drove there, took some pictures by the fountains and then ate at the Cheesecake Factory!!! Mmmm…we shared a piece of Godiva chocolate cheesecake.

Jess, notice she is doing the same thing as the statue in the fountain. 🙂

There were no other poses from the fountain children that I could do, so I just made one up.

I’m really, really homesick the first semester of college. I miss my family, and mostly I miss the (kinda) boyfriend. I was so messed up emotionally with this guy. He was totally the wrong guy for me, as anyone and everyone who knew him would and did testify. If my car wouldn’t have broken down, I would have for sure left college and went back home. But God had such a strategic plan for me! He knew what He was doing!

My heart was crazy involved. I thought I loved the guy. So I’m away at college wanting to live for Jesus, but my heart was given to someone else. And this began the journey of the Lord calling me to give my heart to Him.

The first semester the Lord is clearly showing me that I am not in love with this guy. I just love the attention and affection. But it will never satisfy me. It wasn’t what I really wanted. I wanted something so much more pure and beautiful. Not some messed up love based off of the physical. I was looking for it in all the wrong places and people. The Lord showed me that the love I was looking for would only be found in Jesus!

This was an amazing revelation. But to actually live it out when I went back home for Christmas break and spring break and summer break was a completely different story. So I struggled. Big time. When I was with this guy my heart told me something different then what the Lord told me. But I was tired of struggling. I had been with this guy for 2 and a half years and for about 2 of the years I knew I had to get out. And it took me a while.

Finally July 21st, 2004, the summer before my sophomore year in college it was over. I knew in my heart that I couldn’t live a compromising life any more. I had a decision to make. Would I choose the things of the world that made me happy and then miserable or would I chose the Lord, the only true source of everlasting joy?

I had to chose Jesus! His lovinkindness lead me to repentance. True repentance. Where I didn’t just say sorry and keep living it, but where I was deeply grieved over the way I was living, and didn’t do it anymore.

It was almost unreal. That I was actually not living that lifestyle anymore. I struggled for so long I never thought I would get out. But God is so faithful! He delivered me! He didn’t turn His back on me even though I did it sooooo many times to Him! I was finally walking in the freedom that I knew I was suppposed to!! I was finally letting God have His way with me. And I continued on a journey that I never thought possible…

Again, I just love the passage in Luke 10 that records the First commandment. We have Luke 10:27-37, the conversation between Jesus and the lawyer on the First commandment.

Right after that, (and it is in chronological order) Jesus goes to the home of Mary of Bethany.

Luk 10:38 Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home.
Luk 10:39 She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word.
Luk 10:40 But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.”
Luk 10:41 But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things;
Luk 10:42 but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

This is one of the most incredible passages in scripture. Mary of Bethany is my favorite person recorded in scripture. Here we see two pictures. One of a woman who is giving herself to what looks like nothing. She is just sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to His word. But Martha, oh how Martha is serving and doing what she can for her guests. That looks really good on the outside.

And Martha gets a little offended that her sister isn’t helping her. So she addresses Jesus. “Tell my sister to help me!”

But what does Jesus say? Read very closely. Don’t lose what Jesus says. This is HUGE!

HE says “Martha, you are so worried about so many things! (He rebukes her, not Mary) but Mary has chosen the onething necessary and it will NOT be taken away from her (He defends Mary).”

What? This is crazy! This is opposite of our thinking! You’d think He would tell Mary to get up and help Martha out. But oh no, this is the most valuable thing we could be doing. Sitting at the feet of Jesus. This is what Mary chose to do. And this is the onething necessary.

I believe that this is the greatest picture of what Jesus was discussing earlier in the passage about the first commandment.

If He tells us the First and Foremost thing is to love Him and then He tells us there is only ONE THING necessary, they can’t be two different things. They have to be connected.

So the greatest way to live the First commandment is to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to His words. To gaze on His beauty (Ps. 27:4) and to live in His presence.

This is how we let Him do it in us. We spend time with Him so that He can do it. When we gaze on Him we will become more like Him (2 Cor. 3:18). This is the way to loving HIm with EVERYTHING!

Are you giving yourself to spending time with the One you say you love? This is the ONLY place where we will become who He wants us to be. This is the ONLY place where we can live out Christianity. Or it will be just religion and duty. And that is not what Jesus died for.

He is calling everyone of His followers to do this. This is what He longs for! An intimate relationship with you! There is no other way! He loves you and desires to be loved back by you! But just as Mary had to chose to do it, so do we. We have to make the choice that we are going to sit at His feet, listen to His word and fall in love with Him!